"Here is the patience
and the faith of the saints."--Rev. 13:10, 14:12.
1. The thirteenth and
fourteenth chapters of Revelation should be read in connection
with the history of these churches; and though we cannot give a
full detail of their sufferings, we will essay to epitomize the
statements given by different historians, while we acknowledge
our obligations principally to Mr. Jones, and at the same time
say, with John, "Here is the patience of the saints:"
here are they that kept the commandments of God, and the faith of
Jesus.
2. The severity of the
pope’s measures forced Waldo from Lyons. In the same year, a
synod was convened at Tours, at which all the bishops and priests
in the country of Toulouse were strictly enjoined "to take
care, and to forbid, under pain of excommunication, every person
from presuming to give reception, or the least assistance to the
followers of this heresy; to have no dealings with them in buying
and selling, that thus, being deprived of the common necessaries
of life, they might be compelled to repent of the evil of their
way." The measures caused many of the Albigenses to seek
asylums in other kingdoms: the influence of these measures of the
pope on sovereigns, was such as to occasion their first
succumbing, and then uniting to support the constuprated
sanctuary of Rome. The power embodying at this period to support
the beast, is enough to make all stand amazed. Louis VII, of
France, and Henry II, of England, became equerries to the pope,
holding the bridle of his horse, and afterwards walking, one on
the one side of him, the other on the other, as royal grooms to
his holiness. Here the submissive state of things to the man of
sin may be viewed, and the prevalency of his voice, who was
obeyed and feared more than God. Lucius III issued a decree,
confirmatory of previous measures, in which was stated, "We
declare all Catharists, Paterines, Poor of Lyons, Passignes,
Josephists, Arnoldists, to lie under a perpetual anathema."
These intolerant proceedings drove many of those people, against
whom they were directed, to leave France, cross the Pyrenean
mountains, and take up a residence in Spain.
3. INNOCENT III ascended
the pontifical throne in 1192. Many popes did badly, but this man
exceeded all in cruel turpitude. The man of sin had been
progressive in his character, actions, and inventions; but now,
if his Satanic majesty was ever incarnate, or had one agent on
earth that more resembled him in spirit, design, and executive
mischief, there can be no doubt of Innocent being the man. He
appears matured in the mystery of iniquity; he exhibits in full
view the man fully grown in sin; and in his public character,
handed round to the kings of the earth the cup of abomination,
from which they drank into the same spirit and designs,
participated in the fellowship of crimes, and became intoxicated
or glutted with his iniquitous measures and sanguinary
proceedings. He judged that the church ought to keep no measures
with sectaries, or heretics; and that if it did not crush them,
if it did not extirpate their race, and strike Christendom with
terror, their example would soon be followed; and that the
fermentation of mind which was every where manifest, would
shortly produce a conflagration throughout the whole of Europe.
As incapable of temporising as he was of pity, the pope formed
his plans without delay; and this lovely and delightful region of
France, inhabited by the followers of the Lamb, was given up to
destruction.
4. In 1193, the pope sent
Guy and Reiner, two legates, into France, with instructions of
the most sanguinary description. Instead of making converts of
the heretics, their orders were to burn their leaders, confiscate
their goods, and disperse their flocks. They were not equally
successful in every province; the pope, therefore, instigated the
inert inhabitants of those provinces where the legates were least
successful, to persecute the Albigenses; consequently, many of
the leading persons among them perished in the flames, for a
succession of years. The measures now used against these people,
were found partly paralyzed by many lords and barons, who had
adopted their opinions, and consequently, instead of consenting
to persecute, protected this inoffensive people. From different
causes, a protection was cast round those persons whom his
holiness had doomed to destruction. Innocent, not gaining his
end, laid under an anathema such lords and barons as should
refuse to seize the heretics. Finding his influence not
sufficient in the locality of those poor disciples, he addressed
letters to the king of France, reminding him that it was his duty
to take up arms against heretics. As an additional stimulus, the
pope offered the whole territory the heretics possessed, and
exhorted others of his own community to take possession of all
the Albigenses held. The legates labored, both by exhortations
and actions, in the extirpation of heresy. These champions, in
traversing the country to preach down error, had one favorite
text upon which they could delightfully descant--Who will rise up
for me against the evil doers? or who will stand up for me
against the workers of iniquity?" Psalm 44:16. Though their
preaching did not bring all to see as they wished, it is said to
have occasioned vast multitudes repairing to the Catholic
churches. [Collier’s Gr. Hist. Diet., art. Albig.] Public
disputations were held with the Albigenses, but the Catholics
could always carry by clamor those points they were incapable of
demonstrating by argument, so that the victory was always claimed
by one party. To what extent these missionaries succeeded, as
these means were continued for some years, we do not know; but it
is certain a remnant was not defiled by the woman’s
doctrines, for they remained virgins, and kept the commandments
of God, and the faith of Jesus.
5. The temporary lodgment
those harassed people sought in Spain was disturbed. Ildefonsus,
king of Arragon, published an edict, 1194, commanding all
"Waldenses, Poor of Lyons, and other heretics, who cannot be
numbered, being excommunicated from the holy church, adversaries
to the cross of Christ, violators and corruptors of the Christian
religion, to depart out of our kingdom, and all our
dominions." And "whosoever, from that day forward,
should presume to receive or harbor them, or to afford them meat
or favor, were to be punished for high treason." This cruel
edict was to be published in all churches, in every city and town
in the Spanish dominions. Such was the general state of things
towards this people at the end of this century, which may serve
to prepare us for the appalling scenes of slaughter which
followed.
6. Yet, notwithstanding
these inhuman proceedings, both in France and Spain, in the year
1200, the city of Toulouse, and eighteen other principal towns in
Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphine, were filled with Waldenses and
Albigenses. This was owing, under a kind Providence, to the
lords, barons, viscounts, and others of the French nobility.
Their numbers and importance had awakened the jealousy of the
pope, who now felt additionally angry at the protection given to
those people. To those bulls and anathemas mentioned, the
influence of the legates in exciting the clergy to duty, and the
inhabitants to revenge the pope’s cause, much importance was
attached; but the desired effects of the commission were not so
extensively realized: Rainer the Monk and Pierre de Castelnau,
archdeacon of Maguelone, were charged with the ghostly
commission. In 1206, the missionaries were strengthened by the
Spaniard Dominic uniting with them; and soon after, the order of
preaching friars was established, whose business it was to go
through all towns and villages, to preach the Faith; but secretly
to obtain information as to the dwellings of those who were
obnoxious to the pope’s vengeance. When these
heresy-hunters had purged different provinces of the enemies of
the Roman faith, the pontiff became sensible of the value of
their services; and in a few years he placed in those towns,
whose inhabitants had the misfortune to be suspected of heresy,
missionaries of a like nature, though the people showed the
greatest reluctance to such institutions. [Mosh. Ecc. Hist.,
Cent. 13, p. 2, ch. 5, ~ 3, 4]
7. By the adoption of such
measures against the Albigenses, the populace had been excited;
many of them compromised their principles on the terms of life,
while for years many had suffered martyrdom in many towns of
France, from 1198 and onwards; but Innocent III perceived that
the labors of the inquisitors were not attended with the success
he at first anticipated: he consequently solicited Philip, king
of France, in 1207, with the leading men of that nation, by the
most alluring promises of indulgence, to extirpate heresy by fire
and sword. This appeal does not appear to have had the
desired effect, as new exhortations were repeated, with fresh
promises of favor. Raymond VI, the reigning count of Toulouse,
was, in the spring of this year, on the borders of the Rhone,
engaged in a war against the barons of Raux, and other lords of
those countries, where the pope’s legate, Peter of
Castlenau, above named, undertook to make peace between them. He
first made application to the barons, and obtained their promise
that if Raymond would acquiesce in their pretensions, they would
employ all their forces to exterminate heresy. After settling
matters with them in the form of a treaty, for the extirpation of
heretics, the legate repaired to the count of Toulouse, and
required him to sign it. The latter was no way inclined to
purchase, by the renunciation of his rights, the entrance of an
army, already hostile, into his estates, who were to pillage or
put to death all those of his vassals whom the Roman clergy
should fix upon as the victims of their cruelty. He therefore
refused his consent; and Peter, the legate, in his wrath,
excommunicated him, laid his country under an interdict, and
wrote to the pope to ratify what he had done.
8. The pope was gratified
at the circumstance, being aware that his agents were
insufficient to destroy the heresy encouraged in Raymond’s
dominions. He wrote an insolent letter to the count, dated
May 29, 1207, confirming the sentence of excommunication. Raymond,
terrified, signed the terms of peace, engaging to exterminate all
heretics from his territories. The count not keeping peace with
the legate’s zeal against heresy, was reproached by him in
no moderate language; and was again, by him, excommunicated.
Raymond was excessively provoked, and threatened Castlenau for
his insulting conduct. Through these agitating periods, it
appears, the Albigenses had discussed the merits of the points
between the hierarchy and themselves. One of the principal
debaters on the Albigensian side was Arnold Hot, with whom the
Catholic bishops felt themselves entangled. A circumstance,
mysterious in its consequences, now occurred. Raymond, as
observed, on parting with Castlenau, had threatened to make him
pay for his insolence with his life. They parted without
reconciliation, January 14, 1208. On the fifteenth, after mass,
one of Count Raymond’s friends, who appears to have known of
the legate’s insolence, entered into a dispute with him
respecting heresy and its punishment. The legate never spared the
most insulting epithets to the advocates of toleration; and the
gentleman, irritated by his language, not less than by his
quarrel with Raymond, his lord, drew his poignard, struck
Castlenau in his side, and killed him. The intelligence of this
murder roused the pope to the highest pitch of fury. He instantly
published a bull, addressed to all counts, barons, and knights,
of the four southern provinces of France. He laid under an
interdict all places which should afford a refuge to the
murderers of the legate: he demanded that Raymond of Toulouse
should be publicly anathematized in all churches, and "that
we must not observe faith towards those who keep not faith
towards God, or who are separated from the communion of the
faithful." All persons were relieved from their oaths of
allegiance, they were to pursue his person, and take possession
of his territories.
9. The first bull, as if
taking little effect, was followed by another: the pope at the
same time solicited the king of France to carry on the sacred war
in person, and to destroy all the wicked heresy of the
Albigenses. The legates and monks, at the same time,
received powers from Rome to publish a crusade among the people,
offering to those who should engage in this holy war of plunder
and extirpation against the Albigenses, the utmost extent of
indulgence which his predecessors had ever granted to those who
labored for the deliverance of the Holy Land.* The ignorance
of the times permitted these different means to be but too
successful. The people from all parts of Europe hastened to
France to enrol themselves in this new array, actuated by
superstition and their passions for wars and adventures. They
were, on their arrival, immediately placed under the protection
of the holy see, freed from debts, and exempted from the
jurisdiction of all tribunals; and so were lawless, yet their
services were to expiate all the vices and crimes of a whole
life:--awful delusion!
[* The oppressions felt by
the Asiatic churches from the Mahometans, and a desire among the
clergy to enlarge the territories of the church in that quarter,
had occasioned the pope’s suggesting a variety of means for
the attainment of that object. Peter the Hermit, on visiting
Palestine, in 1093, was grieved to see holy places and persons in
the power of infidels. His zeal led him to travel through Europe,
sounding an alarm of war, and calling on princes and nations to
rescue the holy spot. After difficulties and delays were
overcome, he got together an innumerable multitude of all ranks
who volunteered for this sacred expedition. These were named
Croisade, from wearing a cross. One argument used was, "We
read that God said unto Abraham, ‘Unto thy seed will I give
this land:’ we Christians are heirs of the promise, and the
Holy Land is given to us by covenant, as our lawful
possession." Against these federal claims the Albigenses and
Waldenses wrote, declaring such crusades unlawful. Such crusades
were now invited against these people. Mosh. v. ii. p. 128, and
C. 11, pt,. 2, c. 1, ~ 9, note.]
This lovely and delightful
region, in a state of growing prosperity, was delivered to the
fury of countless hordes of fanatics. The conference on the
different points between Arnold Hot and the bishops was broken up
by the bishop of Villeneuse, declaring that nothing could be
determined, because "the army of the Crusaders was at
hand."
10. In the year 1209, a
formidable army of cross-bearers, of forty days’ service,
was put into motion, destined to destroy all heretics. This army
consisted of, some say, 3, others 500,000 men. At their head,
as chief commander, was,--let every Englishman blush--Simon de
Montford, Earl of Leicester. The cruelties of these Crusaders
appear to have had no parallel; in a few months there were
sacrificed about two hundred thousand lives, and barbarities
practised before unheard of, all which met the approbation of
Innocent the 3rd. [Lon. Ency. v.x.p. 461] Two large cities,
Beziers and Carcassone, were reduced to ashes, and thousands of
victims perished by the sword; while thousands of others, driven
from their burning houses, were wandering in the woods and
mountains, sinking daily under the pressure of want.
[Simondi’s History of the Crusades, &c., p. 6,
&c.]
11. In the fall of the
same year, the monks preached up another crusade against the more
northerly provinces of France. To stir the nation, they opened to
all volunteers the gates of paradise, with all its glories,
without any reformation of life or manners. The army raised from
these efforts was directed in the ensuing spring, 1210, by ALICE,
Simon de Montford’s wife. With this army, a renewal of
last year’s cruelties commenced. All the inhabitants found
were hung on gibbets. A hundred of the inhabitants of BROM had
their eyes plucked out, and their noses cut off, and then were
sent, under the guidance of a man with one eye spared, to inform
the garrisons of other towns what fate awaited them. The
destruction of property and life must have been very great, from
the sanguinary character of those who managed these cruel
measures. The most perfidious conduct was conspicuous in the
leaders of the Catholic cause, pope, bishops, legates, and
officers of the army; whatever terms were submitted to availed
the persecuted nothing, when in the hands of their enemies. On
the 22nd of July, the Crusaders took possession of the castle of
Minerva. The Albigensian Christians were in the meantime
assembled--the men in one house, the women in another; and there,
on their knees, resigned to the awaiting circumstances. A learned
abbot preached to them, but they unanimously cried, "We have
renounced the church of Rome--we will have none of your faith;
your labor is in vain; for neither death nor life will make us
renounce the opinions that we have embraced." An enormous
pile of dry wood was prepared, and the abbot thus addressed the
Albigenses, "Be converted to the Catholic faith, or ascend
this pile;" but none of them were shaken. They set fire to
the wood, and brought them to the fire, but it required no
violence to precipitate them into the flames. Thus, more than one
hundred and forty willing victims perished, after commending
their souls to God. The sacrifice of human life under this
crusade cannot be computed.
12. In 1211, another army
was mustered, and measures were adopted for reducing all places
suspected of heresy; but it appeared now the desire of Montford
to be fully rewarded with the territories subdued, and it was
found no easy matter to set bounds to his ambition. Cruelties
of different degrees of atrocity were committed by this army; but
they met with a salutary check, and an ultimate dispersion, by
the vigorous measures of Count Raymond. We are not prepared to
say why Raymond did not act with vigor before, whether from
timidity, or rather, perhaps, from the well-known principles of
the Albigenses, who allowed of no retaliation. It is certain that
oppression may goad men until they lose sight of their
principles, and become wildered into forced measures.* Simon de
Montford now began to experience a decline of fortune, Count
Raymond regained all the strong places of Albigeois, and in more
than fifty castles, the inhabitants either expelled or massacred
the French garrisons, to surrender themselves to their ancient
lord. The demon of discord at this period began to influence the
leaders of the crusading army. The legate grasped at the most
conspicuous and profitable places. This conduct gave many to view
the massacres of the Albigenses by the monks and their incited
armies, only to allow them to take possession of confiscated
property; the leaders became jealous of each other, and that
union among the chiefs, which had occasioned such awful
devastation, was dissolved; true it is, they had held together
sufficiently long; its cities were ruined; its population
consumed by the sword; its commerce destroyed, and the lamp of
heavenly light, which had shone so resplendent throughout the
whole region, was totally extinguished.
[* "The most furious and
desperate rebels," says Gibbon, "are the sectaries of
religion long persecuted, and at length provoked. In a holy cause
they are no longer susceptible of fear or remorse; the justice of
their arms (cause) hardens them against the feelings of humanity;
and they revenge their fathers’ wrongs on the children of
their tyrants." This view is illustrated in the history of
the Nonconformists in England, the Anabaptists in Germany, the
Hussites in Bohemia, the Calvinists in France, the Albigenses
under Raymond, the Paulicians in Armenia and in Bulgaria, and the
Donatists in Africa. See Rom. Hist. ch. 54.
13. The monks recommenced,
in 1212, their preaching throughout Christendom, with more ardor
than before. The army was renewed four times this year, each
army professedly serving forty days. The country was now found
almost destitute of victims; Montford resolved therefore, to take
advantage of his army, and conducting them against Agenois, whose
entire population was Catholics, he made the surviving
inhabitants pay a sum of money as a ransom for their lives. The
crusaders contenting themselves with this service, as fulfilling
the conditions of enlisting; the pope began to suspect the
designs of the leaders, and in 1213, quite changed his tone
towards his tools of mischief, charging them with murder,
usurpation, cupidity, &c. It is supposed, the King of
Arragon, brother-in-law to Raymond, had by negotiation turned the
tide of affairs. But Montford, and all those monks who had reaped
the advantage of his cruel enterprise, now set aside the
pope’s authority, and refused to listen to an infallible
voice, declaring, it was necessary to destroy Toulouse, and
extirpate its inhabitants, which they compared to Sodom. The pope
at first wavered, and then veered round to Simon’s measure
against Raymond; war was again preached by the officers of
religion, but the pope’s party was now opposed by the King
of Arragon, in union with the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and
Cominges. In the first encounter, the king lost his life, and his
army was routed. This battle of MURET was the death-blow to the
Albigensian party in Languedoc.
In 1215, the prince Louis,
son of the King of France, performed a pilgrimage against
heretics. He appeared before Lyons* with a considerable force,
and performed a duty of forty days against the remaining
Albigenses. In 1216, Innocent paid his debt to nature and
justice. Honorius, his successor, pursued his cruel policy.
[* Perhaps in no city have
Christians suffered so repeatedly and severely, as in Lyons. In
A.D., 177, they realized every indignity. In 202, they
experienced barbarities too indecent to record, and in almost
every persecution, the inhabitants suffered death in every form;
and now, the Albigenses were called to share in a like treatment.
It is said, the blood of twenty thousand martyrs has been shed in
this city! What an awful vengeance and repayment did this city
realize in 1793, under the direction of the national convention,
when 70,000 persons perished by every cruel means which could be
devised by an enraged military force, and when France drank
generally from the retaliating cup of blood. See Seymour’s Hist.
of the Fr. Revol. v. i. 210.]
The war was renewed in
1217 and 1218, but in this last year, Montford was killed at
Toulouse, by the fall of a stone. The death of Simon produced a
momentary truce, and afforded these harassed people a period to
breathe. Louis of France became Simon’s successor in
sanguinary proceedings, and proved himself to be behind no
servant of the pope, in zeal against heresy. The most sanguinary
conduct, in cold blood, was displayed by the bishops and soldiers
under him. Misfortunes had now fully awakened Raymond to his
situation; he, the nobility, and magistrates, united in one cause
their persons and their property, and for a time, gave a check to
brutal encroachment. The king, Louis, retired from the siege of
Toulouse, quite dispirited. The clergy became disgusted with the
crusaders, the bishops could no longer succeed in exciting
fanaticism. Much blood had been spilt, yet all things had
returned to their ancient masters. However drunk, or glutted, or
weary the kings of the earth were with these measures, the pope
and his emissaries were still athirst and unsatisfied. The pope
endeavored to arouse the king of France, but he could not be
moved. Bishops and others were called upon to commit heretics to
the flames, but all parties were inert, and nearly tired of the
conflict. The murdering appeals of the pope awakened some enemies
in the northern provinces, from which the Albigensian refugees
were forced to move, and these directed their steps into
Languedoc, where they experienced some respite. This mortifying
state of affairs, to the papal party, was felt by Cardinal
Bertrand, who, to remedy this almost hopeless state of affairs,
set himself as the pope’s legate, to establish a body of men
more completely devoted to the destruction of heretics and the
lukewarm. Sanctioned by the pope, he, in 1221, instituted
"the order of the holy faith of Jesus Christ," for the
defence of the church, and the destruction of heretics. The
crusading armies were again put in motion in this and the ensuing
year, 1222, but they generally realized adverse fortune.
14. The Albigensian church
was now drowned in blood; their race for the present disappeared;
their opinions ceased to influence society. Hundreds of
villages had seen all their inhabitants massacred with a blind
fury, and without the crusaders giving themselves the trouble to
examine whether they contained a single heretic! It is
impossible to ascertain the number, who, from frenzied zeal,
engaged in this war of extirpation. But we know armies arrived
for seven or eight successive years, more numerous than were
employed in other wars. These considered it as their right to
live at the expense of the country, and therefore, with a
rapacious hand, seized all the harvests of the peasants, and
merchandize of the citizens. No calculations can ascertain the
quantity of wealth dissipated, or the destruction of human life,
which resulted from these crusades. "I have," says Mr.
Jones, "traced the total extermination of the Albigenses,
and with it, the extinction of the cause of reformation, so
happily introduced in the 12th century. The slaughter had been so
prodigious--the massacres so universal--the terror so profound,
and of so long duration, that the church of Rome appeared
completely to have attained her object. The churches were
drowned in the blood of their members, or everywhere broken up
and scattered--the public worship of the Albigenses had
everywhere ceased. All teaching was become impossible. Almost
every pastor or elder had perished in a frightful manner; and the
very small number of those who had succeeded in escaping the edge
of the sword, now sought an asylum in distant countries, and were
enabled to avoid new persecutions, only by preserving the most
studied silence respecting their opinions. The private
members who had not perished by either fire or sword, or who had
not withdrawn by flight from the scrutiny of the inquisition,
knew that they could only preserve their lives by burying their
creed in their bosoms. For them there were no more sermons--no
more public prayers--no more ordinances of the Lord’s
house--even their children were not to be made acquainted, for a
time at least, with their sentiments." [Lect. on Ec. Hist.,
Lect. 41 to 44; Mosh. Ec. Hist., v. ii., p. 432] "The
visible assemblies of the Paulicians or Albigeois," says
Gibbon, "were extirpated by fire and sword; and the bleeding
remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or catholic conformity.
But the invincible spirit which they had kindled, still lived and
breathed in the western world. In the state, in the church, and
even in the cloister, a latent succession was preserved of the
disciples of Paul (Paulicians), who protested against the tyranny
of Rome, embraced the Bible as a rule of faith, and purified
their creed from all the visions of a false theology." [Ros.
Hist. c. 54, v. x., 170] The timid who remained in the land, were
subject to the severities of the inquisitions; these escaped only
by frequently denying their belief. Terror became extreme,
suspicion universal, all teaching of the proscribed doctrines had
ceased, the very sight of a book made the people tremble, and
ignorance was for the greater number, a salutary guarantee. So
complete was the triumph of the Catholic party, that the
persecutors, in confidence of victory, became divided, made war
reciprocally on each other, and were thereby weakened and ruined.
Aug. 6, 1221, Dominic died.
15. The Albigenses, who had
been compelled to return into Languedoc, found themselves, with
successive accessions, sufficiently numerous in 1222, in the
places wherein their fathers had suffered, to animate them with a
hope of renewing their instructions and reorganizing their
churches. The monks and inquisitors, from some cause, being at
this period destitute of aid from the secular arm, were reduced
to the necessity of only noting the following: "About one
hundred of the principal Albigenses held a meeting at a place
called Pieussau Rasez, at which Guillabert de Cashes
presided." He was one of the oldest of their preachers, and
had escaped the researches of the fanatics. This assembly
provided pastors or teachers for the destitute churches, whose
former officebearers had perished in the flames, by the sword, or
gibbet. Not only was there a languishing in the conduct of
bishops, clergy, and the army; but even young Montford, who
possessed from his father the confiscated estates, saw himself
without money or men, and those few castles he held only waited a
favorable opportunity to welcome their old landlords. So
desperate were Montford’s affairs, that he offered all his
blood-bought patrimony as a gift to the king of France, and the
pope sanctioned the donative, provided the king would still
prosecute the war against the Albigenses, and extirpate the
newly-arisen heresy, but which the king declined.
16. On Louis VIII
ascending the throne, he entered into the spirit of extirpation,
and the aspect of affairs became exceedingly dark; but some
circumstances in the affairs of Frederick the emperor interrupted
the enemy’s designs. The Albigenses were too insignificant
now to give the pope any disquietude, but yet there was
Raymond’s vineyard, which the French king had a desire to
possess. Animated by Honorius, the French king took the field
with an army of fifty thousand horse, to annihilate Raymond and
heresy. The terror which this formidable army inspired is not
to be described. All those persons who made conscience of
religion sought an asylum in the neighboring countries, bordering
on the Pyrenean mountains; in the valleys of Piedmont; and
probably in some of the German States; which former places became
early filled with Dissenters from the Roman church; those who
travelled farther, carried with them the germ of reformation
through nearly all the provinces of Christendom. This army
was very formidable; fear became extreme; the bonds of society,
of relations, and of affection, were now dissolved. A nobleman
who had married a daughter of Raymond VII sent her back to him,
declaring that, after the summons of the king and church, he
broke off all connection with him. Thus the pope’s voice
opposed and exalted itself, and prevailed against a divine
ordinance, supported by the strongest and most tender ties.
17. Submissions were made
by part of those States the king came to conquer; but some he
found with Raymond disposed to hold out. Raymond knew he could
not encounter the enemy in the field, therefore hoped that the
elongation of the war would perhaps give his embarrassed affairs
a favorable turn. On the 10th of June the siege of Avignon
was commenced, which proved more difficult than was first
anticipated. Famine, disease, a fever, and other causes, removed
vast numbers of horses and men in the crusading army; the stench
of the dead infected the army; unhappily, the besiegers consented
to a capitulation on the 12th September, which terms were
shamefully violated. Fifteen days after the capitulation, a
terrible inundation of the river Durance covered all the space
which had been occupied by the French camp. Had not the soldiers
previously taken up their quarters within the walls, they would
certainly have been swept away by the water, with their tents and
baggage. The next enterprise of the crusading army was against
Toulouse, but their utmost efforts only produced one heretic, an
old man and infirm preacher, named PETER ISARN: he was committed
to the flames, with the parade of a great triumph. This one life,
this one heretic, had cost the king the amazing amount of 20,000
men, besides horses and money. The king, under considerable
disappointment in not attaining his object, returned to his
court, and, from grief or infection, died Nov. 8th, 1226. These
severities and harassings in Languedoc led a section to seek an
asylum in the province of Gascony, which district at that time
depended on the kings of England, but where the authority of the
government was nearly disregarded.
In 1227 a new army was raised
against Jews and heretics, personally enumerating as heretics
Raymond, the Count of Foix, and the Viscount of Beziers. They
first attacked the castle of Becede, in Lauraquais. The
Archbishop of Narbonne, with the Bishop of Toulouse, hastened to
aid in the siege. Part of the besieged made their escape, the
rest were either knocked on the head or put to the sword. It is
said the Bishop of Toulouse saved several from the violence of
the soldiers, that he might be gratified in seeing them perish in
the flames. Similar instances of cruelty were exhibited during
all the period of this crusade, though the spirit of fanaticism
was considerably abated. During the minority of Louis IX, the
management of affairs devolved on his mother Blanche, who was by
birth a Spaniard, and in the estimation of her church very
religious. She was what the age made her, which, according to
historians, exempts her, with Calvin and Luther, and all
persecutors, from condign reproach; ‘the fault of the
times’ has relieved the criminal, on the grounds of custom!
The queen-mother had the talent to terminate the conquest of the
Albigenses, and to gather the fruits of this long-cultivated
aceldama. Against the queen’s army, Raymond now took the
field, 1228, flattering himself that the civil wars, risings and
revolts of the barons, which threatened the queen’s affairs,
and the enthusiastic among the crusaders being engaged against
the Holy Land, allowed him some grounds to hope he should recover
his possessions. His trials had now driven him to fury, and the
cruelties of his soldiers and party disgrace the page of history.
Those who fell into his hands were mutilated with odious cruelty.
From the moment of his adopting this cruel policy, the tide of
affairs changed, his success and prospects ended with his
clemency.
19. Fouquet, Bishop of
Toulouse, had never quitted the crusaders; he surpassed all his
compeers in sanguinary zeal, by which zeal he obtained the
cognomen of "Bishop of Devils." To meet
Raymond’s opposition, many bishops preached up a crusade,
and by the middle of June a numerous and fanatical army was
brought before Toulouse. The citizens, affrighted, shut
themselves up within the walls, abandoning the surrounding
country, and flattering themselves with the hope of wearying the
besiegers. The crusading army, under Fouquet and a lieutenant,
drew the troops up near to the city every morning, and then
retiring by different routes each day to the mountains, they
destroyed, through all the space they passed over, every vestige
of fruit, corn, and vegetables, with vines, trees, and houses; so
that there remained no traces of the industry or the riches of
man. For three months the army without interruption continued
thus methodically to ravage all the adjacent country. At the end
of the campaign, the city was only surrounded by a frightful
desert; all its richest inhabitants, whether catholic or
otherwise, were ruined; and their courage no longer enabled them
to brave such a merciless warfare. Several lords, hitherto
friends, now abandoned them, submitting their castles to the king
of France; and nearly at the same time, Raymond listened to
proposals of peace. Raymond appears to have been so overwhelmed
with terror, as well as his subjects, that he no longer preserved
any hope of defending himself.
Independent of those that
fell by the sword, or were committed to the flames by the
soldiers and magistrates, the inquisition was constantly at work
from 1206 to 1228, and produced the most dreadful havoc among the
disciples of Christ. In this last year, the Archbishops of Aix,
Arles, and Narbonne found it necessary to intercede with the
monks of the inquisition, to defer a little their work of
imprisonment, until the pope could be apprised of the immense
numbers apprehended,--numbers so great that it was impossible to
defray the charge of their subsistence, or even to provide stone
and mortar to build prisons for them.
On Dec. 10, 1228, Raymond
gave full powers to the Abbot of Grandselve to negotiate with the
courts of France and Rome. He demanded neither liberty of
conscience for his subjects, nor the preservation of his
sovereignty. He abandoned all thoughts of maintaining any longer
his independence. On the 12th of April, 1229, Raymond abandoned
to the king all his French possessions, and to the pope’s
legate all that he possessed in the kingdom of Arles. He was now
required, in order to prove the sincerity of his submission to
the Roman see, to make war on his friend, the Count of Foix:
Raymond preferred being a prisoner, or serving five years in a
crusade to the Holy Land. He submitted to the most humiliating
penance. He repaired with his feet naked, and with only his shirt
and trowsers, to the church of Notre Dame, at Paris, where a
cardinal, after administering the discipline upon his naked back,
conducted him to the foot of the grand altar, and on account of
his humility and devotion, he pronounced absolution, on condition
of fulfilling his treaty at Paris. Raymond remained six weeks a
prisoner, his daughter was taken under the queen’s care, and
his territories were passed into other hands. The inhabitants,
his late subjects, appeared to be resigned to all impending ill;
they only asked for liberty of conscience, but this was denied
them; and in the ensuing November the council of Toulouse
established the inquisition to complete the work of heresy; and
in the year 1229, first forbade the use of the Scriptures in the
vulgar tongue. [At Toulouse it is said the first society in
France was formed for circulating the Bible in the vernacular
tongue.]
20. Driven from their
homes, the Albigenses had migrated into Germany, Switzerland;
some crossed the Alps, and found an asylum in the valleys of
Piedmont, which were under the clement sceptre of the dukes of
Savoy; while the Pyrenean mountains afforded a convenient retreat
to thousands of these exiles. In Gascony some sojourned,
while others visited the churches in Italy, where Gregory IX
called for aid, in order to their extirpation. This call had been
supported by Frederick, who denounced all Catharines, Paterines,
poor of Lyons, and other heretics. By this edict the emperor
commanded all magistrates and judges immediately to deliver to
the flames every man who should be convicted of heresy by the
bishops, and to pull out the tongues of those to whom the bishops
should show favor, that they might not corrupt others by
justifying themselves. Even Raymond no longer refused to
persecute his unhappy subjects, being led to expect, on this
condition, the restoration of part of his property.
In 1232 Raymond united with
the bishop of Toulouse, and surprised by night a house, in which
they discovered nineteen men and women, probably assembled for
worship, whom they committed to the flames. The infamous conduct
of the inquisitors, under Gregory’s directions, disgusted
many who were friendly to the Church of Rome; and the opposition
to that tribunal was so great in Languedoc, that the inquisition
was at last, Nov. 5, 1235, expelled from the city. The
inquisition, by an order from the court of Rome, remained in a
state of total inactivity from 1237 to 1241, which was supposed
to arise from the combination of various cities formed for its
destruction.
The unhappy Raymond now
cultivated the friendship of the emperor of Germany, and, hoping
to gain his lost property, managed to assemble an army for the
recovery of Provence. The people revered the names of their
ancient lords, and rose in arms; he recovered a few small places;
but the prompt measures of Louis, and the forces he brought into
the field, filled Raymond with apprehensions of seeing the
crusades against the Albigenses renewed in all their horrors; he
therefore humbled himself to all the terms of the Roman court;
but in the following year he made another effort to free himself
and his country from the chains of slavery. A war between France
and England gave some grounds to anticipate success, and a great
many barons promised their aid; and the country, hoping the hour
of deliverance had arrived, flocked to his standard. Several
ecclesiastics and monks were surprised and cut in pieces, which
so effectually awakened the ire of the pope, that his thundering
measures occasioned a defection among Raymond’s allies, his
courage drooped, and he unconditionally submitted to Louis; and
the whole territory of the Albigensian churches was delivered
over to the will of the pope and king, which latter, in January,
1243, received a personal acknowledgment of Raymond’s
homage, and the land became quiet. [See Jones’s Christian
Church, vol. ii. ch. 5, ~ 6, p. 119, &c.; also his Ecc.
Hist., lect. 46; Dr. Bray’s Usurpation and Tyranny of
Popery, with Perrin’s History, translated;
Chandler’s translation of Limborch’s Hist. of the
Inquisition; Bishop Newton on Prophecies.] Thus terminated
all hope with the extinction of one million of inoffensive lives.
Yet after all this waste of life, it is asserted on good
authority that the Gospellets, or Berengarians, amounted to
800,000 persons in 1260.
21. Having brought the
outlines of the Albigensian history to the period of their
church’s destruction, and the transfer of the territory to
the see of Rome, we shall now submit a few observations and
testimonies on their denominational aspect. The purity of
their lives, and inoffensiveness in character and conduct of
these witnesses of the truth, with the soundness of their
religious creed, through the domination of the man of sin, has
occasioned almost every class of modern Christians to claim them
as their predecessors, but proofs are required to support such
claims, and these only will satisfy the impartial inquirer.
[Toplady’s Hist. Proofs, vol. i., p. 151, &c. Dr.
Cave’s Prim. Christianity, and Collier’s Hist.
Dict., art. Albigenses]
First, It has been fully
admitted by all creditable historians, that the Albigenses were
originally called Puritans, from the Novatian, Paulician, and
Paterine dissenters, whose sentiments have passed under review.
[Mosh. Ecc. Hist., Cent. 12, p. 2, ch. 5, ~ 4, with notes and
references, and C. 13, p. 2, c. 5, ~ 7, note; Gibbon’s Rom.
Hist., vol. x, p. 170, c. 54; Miln. Church Hist., Cent. 3, ch.
13; Jones’s Ecc. Lect., vol. ii, p. 276]
Secondly, The constitution of
all those dissenting churches left on record, viz., Novatianists,
Donatists, Paulicians, with the Albigenses, was strictly on the
terms of "believers’ baptism indispensable to church
fellowship."
Thirdly, After Novatian,
Novatus, and Constantine appeared as reformers, Gundulphus,
Arnold of Brescia, Berenger, Peter de Bruys, Henry of Toulouse,
and Peter Waldo, who all equally renounced infant baptism, with
those who were called after their names, which subject we shall
refer to in a future section. [Dr. Allix’s Rem. on Anc. Ch.
Pied., c. 2, p. 6; Ency. Brit., art. Alb. The controversy in the
eleventh century about single and trine immersion, decides the
early mode; see Mosh. Eccl. Hist., C. 11, p. 2, c. 3, ~ 11. Dr.
Wall says, the Latins never made three immersions essential to
baptism, Hist. Inf. Bap., pt. 2, p. 384.
Fourthly, The productions of
their pens, their creed, or confession of Faith, the Noble
Lesson, and What is Antichrist, are in accordance with Baptist
views, as already exhibited.
Fifthly, When severe measures
were used by the dominant party, those examined denied the
utility of infant baptism.
Sixthly, The decrees of
popes, the canons of councils, with the testimony of enemies, are
plain proofs that the Baptists’ views did widely prevail for
centuries; and we believe it would be difficult to find a
community existing at this period deserving the name of
Christian, whose views are not in accordance with the
anti-paedobaptists. The submission of a creed, containing a
belief of the infant rite, and an injunction to practise it,
shows the jealousy of the dominant party toward the Albigenses on
this subject.
22. The testimonies
of avowed enemies and friends we take leave to record.
Dr. Ecbertus says, the
principal reason the Arnoldists bring against infant baptism is
Matt. 28:19, and Mark 16:16. The Albigenses say, concerning the
baptizing of children, that through their incapacity it nothing
profiteth them to salvation; and that baptism ought to be
deferred till they come to years of discretion, and when they can
with their own mouth make a profession of faith. [Danver’s
Bap. p. 292-7]
Erbardus, a great doctor of
that time, says, The Puritans do deny baptism to children,
because they want understanding. [Idem.]
The citizens of Orleans, the
first Albigenses, denied baptismal grace. [Milner’s Ch.
Hist., Cent. 11, ch. 2, from Usher] Dr. Wall records that the
Lionists, or followers of Waldo, say that the washing given to
children does no good. [Hist. Inf. Bap. p. 2, 233] They condemn
all the sacraments of the Catholic church. [Jones’s Ecc.
Lect., vol. ii., p. 486]
"Baptism added nothing
to justification, and afforded no benefit to children." [Dr.
Allix’s Rem. Pied. ch. 11, p. 95]
Alanus affirms that some of
the Puritans believed that baptism was no use to infants, but
only to those of riper age, and that others saw no use in baptism
at all. [Id., ch. 17, p. 155, and Dr. Wall, pt. 2, p. 240. The
anti-baptismists and the Anti-paedobaptists are allowed by Wall
and others, but these writers cannot, at this period, establish
paedobaptism out of the church of Rome and Greece.]
Favin the historian says,
"‘the Albigeois do esteem the baptizing of infants
superstitious. [Danver on Bap., p. 301]
Izam the troubadour, a
Dominican persecutor, says, "they admitted another
baptism" to what the church did, that is, believers’
baptism. [Rob. Ecc. Res., p. 463]
Chassanion says, "I
cannot deny that the Albigeois for the greater part were opposed
to infant baptism; the truth is, they did not reject the
sacrament as useless, but only as unnecessary to infants." [Facts
opposed to Fiction, p. 48]
Other testimonies will be
given under the Waldensian section.
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